- Top 10 Tips to Avoid Using the Microwave
- 1. Plan ahead
- 2. Use your teapot for boiling water
- 3. Steam or roast your veggies
- 4. Use a pot to reheat
- 5. Use a toaster oven to reheat
- 6. More toaster oven magic
- 7. Reheat baby food/thaw food cubes
- 8. Melt butter, cheese or chocolate for recipes
- 9. Another double boiler fake-out
- 10. Pop your popcorn on the stovetop!
- How I Avoid Using the Microwave
- 13 Surprising Benefits of a Microwave-Free Life
Our world is pretty dependent upon microwaves! When I started questioning the safety of my microwave, I thought I’d never be able to do what that divine appliance could do for me without it. It came down to asking the same question for each different situation: What am I trying to do, and is there another way to do it? I’ve experimented and succeeded in many ways.
Top 10 Tips to Avoid Using the Microwave
1. Plan ahead
Thaw your meat and other frozen items in the refrigerator. I recommend giving things two full days to thaw. That way you won’t have any surprise frozen centers when you’re ready to cook. If you’re meal planning and making your life easier that way, this shouldn’t be a problem. (Alternative: for ground meats, you can just throw the whole frozen block in the pan and be willing to turn and peel off layers of cooked meat, or if you have an Instant Pot you can cook meat straight from the freezer in about half an hour) In a pinch, you can thaw meats packaged tightly in plastic bags in a sinkful of water – the safety pundits say to use cold water. I’ve cheated with hot water in the past as long as I’m cooking up the meat immediately. This is much quicker (and safer, with cold water) than just leaving things on the countertop to thaw.
2. Use your teapot for boiling water
It is sometimes just as quick as the microwave and stays hot longer!
3. Steam or roast your veggies
Oven roasted veggies have a wonderful flavor that cannot be achieved with any other cooking style. And if you’re cooking cruciferous veggies you can even more motivation not to use the microwave.
4. Use a pot to reheat
Soups, stews, casseroles (that won’t be messed up by stirring), pasta with sauce, etc. Just add a little bit of water or broth (or frozen cubes of broth) in the pot to reduce sticking.
5. Use a toaster oven to reheat
Store your leftovers in glass containers and pop them right into the toaster oven. You can even reheat multiple servings of different foods this way. I stick with 350 degrees, and it takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes to reheat foods, depending on how dense or deep the food is in the container. Cover items that might brown on top with a bit of tinfoil (reuse it every time!). Do use a hot pad on the table for single serving dishes right out of the oven.
Note: For anything that could possibly be heated in a pot or pan, the stove is immeasurably quicker than the toaster oven or large oven, so you want to make your choices based on time available.
6. More toaster oven magic
Put pizza, hamburgers, tacos…any single item leftovers on a tray in the toaster oven. Again, you can reheat different stuff at the same time. You can even do a little plop of beans and rice or a chunk of lasagna on the tray.
No toaster oven? You can do all that in a regular oven as well, of course!
7. Reheat baby food/thaw food cubes
Use a glass dish and one cycle of “toast” (two or more for frozen cubes) will usually do it! This way you don’t have to set a timer, which is nice. Baby doesn’t need food very hot, anyway!
I also use the “toast” function for small things like muffins, pancakes, and thin tacos, as well as leftovers for my son who doesn’t like things too hot. It’s nice to be able to walk away and know I’m not going to let something burn if I forget to set don’t hear the timer.
8. Melt butter, cheese or chocolate for recipes
Either in a pan with lots of stirring, or even better, in a small pot that is nestled in a larger pot filled with water. I call this the poor man’s double boiler, and it’s great because it will prevent your chocolate or cheese from burning. (The large pot does NOT count as a dirty dish; just dump the water and air dry!)
9. Another double boiler fake-out
If you have leftover soup or sauce frozen in a glass jar (I like using spaghetti sauce jars – they’re free and just the right amount for my little family of 3 ½ eaters), you can put it in a pot of water and heat it up until you can pour out the soup into the pot (after you empty the water, of course!).
10. Pop your popcorn on the stovetop!
I felt silly when my friend told me how yummy and easy this is. I had never considered that it was possible! Just melt some fat (butter, olive oil, coconut oil) in a pot and put one kernel in. When it pops, add more kernels (up to a ½ cup) in a single layer and put the lid on. If you have a glass lid and kids to watch the action, this is a really fun activity! You can tell when it’s done just like in the mic: when the popping noise gets a few seconds apart, pull the pot off the heat quickly. Pour popcorn into a bowl, and you can use the same pot to melt some butter to drizzle on top if you’d like. Mmmmm…
Another option is to buy a popper; I just found one at a garage sale for a buck, and it works great! It’s 30 years old, which is a little scary, and it shot a few kernels across the room, but who doesn’t like a little daring and adventure in the kitchen?
A concern that a lot of people have with avoiding the microwave and using pots, pans, cookie sheets instead is the extra dishes it creates.
Here are some practical tips for managing your time and cutting down on dishes:
- Put soup on to boil or a casserole/leftovers in the toaster oven as soon as you walk into the kitchen for the meal. Often by the time you’ve gotten out everything you need for the meal, the food is hot.
- Try to use the same dish for reheating as for eating: either store your leftovers in glass, ovensafe dishes (Pyrex, Anchor-Hocking) or take a risk with your Corelle dishes.If you’re just gently reheating something like a thin layer of spaghetti for a youngster or melting cheese for nachos, you can probably get away with putting your plate right in the toaster oven, either on “toast” or “bake”. I realized one day that I often saw people put pancakes on a plate in a warm oven, and I tried putting one in my toaster oven. It didn’t break. I was excited with my new discovery! Since December I’ve only lost one plate — I think the kielbasa I was trying to heat up was (a) too cold (frozen) and perhaps (b) too greasy. It cracked the plate all to pieces. Sad, but I’m going to keep using Corelle in the toaster oven because they can go right into my dishwasher.
- Hang hot pads right near your toaster oven. That way you can easily grab one to get your leftovers out and then put it under your dish on the table. You’ll just get used to needing a hot pad under your plate.If you organize your space for efficiency, you’ll be more likely to feel positive about making a change.
- Use one pot for multiple leftovers. A single serving of soup or spaghetti and sauce, for example, heats up mighty fast in a pot on the stovetop. With the microwave we’re often willing to go one person at a time to reheat our leftovers, so why not on the stovetop? I’ll just heat soup, pour into a bowl, and quickly rinse the pot and dump the next person’s leftovers in it.
- A little planning goes a long way. If you know what you’re going to have for lunch or dinner, you can usually plan ahead and just start the process 15 minutes earlier, then tackle a short task while your food is reheating. Like I told you with my Best Ever Scrambled Eggs, if you can multitask to accomplish something while food is taking care of itself in the oven or on the stovetop, it doesn’t really “count” as taking longer to reheat.
How I Avoid Using the Microwave
You’ll remember from this post that I started out with a simple baby step when I decided the microwave might not be healthy for my family. I just chose to avoid it when I thought I could figure something else to do, but not to stress out about it. I was pondering the differences in my lunchtime shortly after, and I realized life may have actually changed for the better. Here’s my before-and-after:
Before:
- Get leftovers out, usually something different for me and my son.
- Put his in the microwave. (Worry that he’s standing there watching it turn around. More on this Friday.)
- Try to do another prep task in 30 seconds.
- Fail. Mic timer beeps too soon.
- Get his food out of the microwave. Put it on the table. Tell him lunch is ready.
- Get my food in the microwave.
- Cut a piece of fruit.
- Test the warmth of my food. Decide it’s not ready yet. Add 30 seconds.
- Get drinks; get interrupted by microwave.
- Put my food on the table.
- Begin to yell for son to come quickly because everything is ready!
- Daughter, of course, needs a new diaper about now.
- Change daughter’s diaper.
- Food is cold. Re-microwave son’s food.
- Re-microwave my food.
- Realize we still need drinks; complete that task.
- Realize we need condiments; get them out.
- Pray with son.
- Realize we need utensils; get them out.
- Take a bite of food.
- Decide food has gotten cold; re-microwave food.
And now that baby is eating solid food regularly, I could add more interruptions to get her food, feed her food, and wash her face. My microwaved food was always getting cold and needing to be re-nuked!
After:
- Decide together what leftovers we will be eating; more often the same thing.
Added Bonus: Avoiding the microwave encourages me to choose the same leftovers as my son, ultimately requiring me to get fewer items out and simplifying lunch. - Put something in the pot on the stove or on the tray or in glass dish(es) in the toaster oven; turn on heat.
- Focus attention on the rest of the meal.
- Cut fruit.
- Get out utensils.
- Find veggies to munch on.
- Pour beverages.
- Prepare baby’s food.
- Pull son’s food out (he’s afraid of hot things!).
- Call son to table, pray for meal, gather all the things I forgot about.
- Pull own meal out. Eat – drum roll, please! — hot food! A mother’s dream, really. We don’t eat hot food very often.
- After one or two bites, turn attention to feeding baby, getting son something else, or [fill in blank].
- Return to food…which is still something that could pass for “hot”. Not bad!
Usually, in truth, the food is ready by the time we’re ready. Sometimes we put the food in the toaster oven and play a little more. This makes my 3-year-old deliriously happy, and I don’t mind a little downtime either. I’m generally a tiny bit less stressed at lunchtime, so I prefer planning ahead and starting early to the rushing around to keep up with the microwave.
Rushing to Get Lunch?
If we have to get lunch quickly, like when we’ve just come in from shopping and it’s already 12:45, I can easily get food on the table, especially for the little ones, in 5 minutes. You choose sandwiches that day, or start with yogurt as an “appetizer” while other things are cooking. There are also many leftovers that heat up very quickly for a single serving: soup in a pot or a taco on a cookie sheet (at least hot enough for the son) in the toaster oven are two examples. Crudite platters are also nice and quick if you have veggies cut in advance, always a good practice to get families to eat more veggies.
13 Surprising Benefits of a Microwave-Free Life
I challenged myself to use the microwave less and less often, and here are some the surprising benefits I’ve stumbled upon as I succeed:
- Meat that is thawed in the fridge doesn’t (a) have some weird cooked spots from uneven microwave thawing and (b) is ready the second you walk into the kitchen.
- Popcorn on the stovetop or with a popper is really good and is healthier for my body than microwave popcorn.
- Hot chocolate is actually easier because I don’t have to run the microwave separately for each cup of water. I can flip on the teapot burner, then worry about getting mugs and hot chocolate mix organized. There is less “hands-on” time.
- Second helpings of casserole or soup are ready immediately, not when I scoop another serving and nuke it.
- I don’t always create more dishes: we can put leftovers in our glass dishes, which can go right into the toaster oven in single or double servings, then into the dishwasher to be sparkly clean!
- I am encouraged to eat the same thing as my children or guests, ultimately simplifying lunch preparation and cleanup. I counted the number of items I had to get out one day to feed my preschool-age son and myself. Between two different main courses, condiments, fruit in the yogurt, and drinks, I got up to over 20 things! That’s a bit ridiculous. I was ready to simplify!
- Bread products like pancakes, waffles and biscuits are good in the microwave, but not if you overdo them. Same with the toaster oven: a lot of people don’t like the “toasty” parts of reheating these in the toaster, but you can alleviate that problem by wrapping the items in aluminum foil.
- Leftover pizza, hamburgers and crispy nachos are MUCH tastier in the toaster oven.
- Ditto for anything with meat in it, especially chicken. I hate the toughness of chicken reheated in the microwave. Ask my mom: I used to eat cold leftover stir fry for breakfast in high school!
- I can lightly warm baby’s food in a glass dish with one “toast” cycle. I plan ahead and thaw my food cubes a day in advance, but if I’m in a pinch I can just toast a frozen cube longer.
- I am convinced that heating a pot of leftover soup (or any liquid-based meal) is quicker than heating two (or more!) separate bowls in the microwave, and it definitely makes certain everyone has hot food and eats at the same time. The toaster oven is not always as accommodating.
- I can make other parts of the meal (veggies, cut fruit, salads, drinks) while the leftovers are heating in the toaster oven. Sometimes avoiding the microwave doesn’t make lunch prep take any longer at all.
- The BEST one ever: Everything stays hotter longer when heated “for real”, either on the stove or in the oven. Hot chocolate, soup, steamed vegetables, you name it. Let me repeat that one, it’s worth it: Everything stays hot. That one is really nice.
More About Microwaves:
I read where a study that was done on the effects of microwave radiation to water. Plants were fed water that had been microwaved and some given regular water. The plants that had the microwave treatment died! ‘Nuff said! I refuse to use a microwave and I question restaurants, especially “fast” food places if they use them. I found your site by accident but am now a fan.
Beth – I do actually heat pasta in a pot on the stove – as long as it has a little sauce and can be stirred around, it does okay – although you’re right, the oven is tastier. I feel like a small serving or two only takes 10 minutes in a toaster oven, and by that time we have the rest of our meal situated, children have gone potty and washed, their hands, etc. We’re slow. 😉 For unsoftened butter, b/c I do that all the time, you can just mash it with a rolling pin really well and it works okay! 🙂 Katie
What about reheating a pasta dish? Heating it with water wouldn’t really work and trying to heat on the stovetop would likely get the pasta a little crispy. A covered dish in the oven would work, but that’s probably a good 25 minutes with the oven on vs 60 seconds in the microwave. That’s about the only thing I use the microwave for (well that and softening butter for baking purposes but that’s only because I didn’t plan in advance).
Shauna – We do the same as Annelies – just did it for lunch with a bit of water in a pot in fact. If you have time, you can even bake rice (add a little water). 🙂
Sarah – I often reheat one thing, serve it up, quick rinse, reheat the next, etc. Or put a bunch of dry leftovers on one cookie sheet and heat all at once. 🙂
Shauna- we will add a bit of water to a pan on the stovetop to reheat rice and it works like a charm.
When we got married, we made a conscious choice not to register for a microwave. We kind of wondered if we would miss it. Really, reheating food on the stovetop doesn’t take that much more time and we’re going on three years without.
Is anyone aware of a good way to reheat cooked rice w/o the microwave?
our microwave turned into another cupboard. In the summer we would just use the toaster oven instead of the oven to avoid heating up the house.
my teens friend’s think we are weird because we dont have a microwave(dishwasher either) i have to admit i miss it in the summer because it gets hotter than hades in here when i have to use the oven
My MW quit a few weeks ago, and I really do not miss it, my toaster oven though would be immediately replaced –I do not like turning the big oven on to cook a piece of chicken. I make tea biscuits or muffins and freeze them and take 1 out and cook with the rest of the meal
I got rid of mine a year ago and I’m so happy I did 🙂 It’s not much harder to heat things up on the stove.
Only used by the Hubby to reheat his cup of coffee.
Big, silver breadbox here. I only miss it on leftover night, when it seems like I dirty every pot and pan we own heating up the assorted options!
We have been microwave-free for a few months now. I didn’t use it much before, just reheating leftovers, but I don’t even miss it anymore. I already made stove top popcorn and thawed meat in the sink. It has made me much more creative with leftovers – today I had one chicken breast in some sauce and some brown rice in the fridge. If I had a mic I would have just nuked it and it would have fed one person. Instead I shredded the chicken, warmed it in a sauce pan, added some (real) bacon bits and some frozen peas, the rice, and some leftover cauliflower. Stir in the rice and voila, dinner for 4 🙂
Best thing to do!
Got rid of ours years ago and have never looked back 🙂
We haven’t had one for at least 3 years, and before that we only used it for very very little. We use our toaster oven to reheat leftovers it takes maybe a min. more and they taste so much better.
We are renting a house that has no mircowave. My husband asked me once if I wanted one, and I really had to think about it. I told him I value my little bit of counter space for sourdough bread and kombucha and other stuff. So, we have been without for almost a year now. No dishwasher also.
We’ve not had one in over 2 years. We replaced it with a small convection/toaster oven. Works great for left overs. And a tea kettle on the stove works great for hot drinks. We don’t miss it at all.
We unplugged ours because we never used it. Friends and family think we are weirdos when they want to borrow it and we have to plug it in. 🙂
Amy – we run them through the dishwasher
We really don’t miss ours! Especially with the air popper for popcorn
My mother in-law uses her as a bread box…lol
We haven’t had a microwave in years and we don’t miss it at all. ever. Even when we had one, we barely used it, I am quite amazed at the things people rely on one for-heating things on the stove can be just as quick and generally better warmed through.
I use mine to nuke my cleaning sponges. When I suggested tossing it, my husband thought I was nuts. I’m working on him. 😉
First of all, I LOOOOVE the suggestion of thawing your glass jars of soup/broth/etc. in a pan of water on the stove. That is entirely genius and I can’t believe I never thought of it. Sometimes I forget to pull mine out of the freezer with enough time to thaw before dinner. 🙂 Now, along those same lines…do you think I could reheat baby food cubes in a glass bowl the same way? Sadly, we don’t have a toaster oven (yet!). I remember my mom melting various colors of chocolate in little glass Pyrex bowls (in an electric skillet) as a kid. I’m pretty sure we had a microwave, but it was a way of keeping them warm and melted while she did candy making.
Ashley,
I bet that would work! Esp. with a lid to keep the water out just in case. Great idea! 😉 Katie
Great tips, Katie! I posted a link to my FB page so my friends can come read this. I LOVE my toaster oven and am always using it for reheating. I also find that for most foods, you can easily reheat with in a pan with a smidge of water and cover and the food stays moist and heats evenly – this is especially wonderful when reheating meat. Thanks again for another great post! 🙂 kel
P.S. Your $1 garage sale popcorn popper comment made me LOL! My kids would love that (popcorn shooting across the room!) 🙂
I’m quite surprised to find out you’re scared of a 30-year-old popcorn popper. Older small appliances tend to be so much better than the newer ones. I think getting an older item that is good quality is excellent stewardship of both money and resources.
As for avoiding the microwave, it is easy to reheat pizza in a covered frying pan. I have some heavy-bottomed pans that hold their heat for a long time, so I’m also able to reheat a serving of rice or pasta in a bowl inside the frying pan, using residual heat left after making something else in the pan. When you empty the pan, before it cools down, plunk the bowl of food in it and cover.
Laura,
Mostly just scared because it makes a funny smell and shoots things all over the kitchen… 😉
We’ve since donated it back to a sale and just do the stovetop thing now.
I keep forgetting to try pizza that way! Sounds yummy and crispy! 🙂 katie
I haven’t used a microwave in an entire year. My husband misses it more than I do. It just takes a little extra time and thought when re-heating leftovers, but I feel our nutrition and safety have both improved. I feel bad for the years I did use one, hopefully I didn’t cause too much damage. Also, you have a great blog!
Thanks, Bren! The husbands are harder to pull over, aren’t they? 😉 My hubs is the same way.
🙂 Katie
Well as much as I would love to get rid of our MW, I can’t. My DH wouldn’t know what to do without it. The only thing we really use it for is reheating items.
I just had an email forwarded to me on how pizza in the MW comes out mushy. The suggestion was to put it in a skillet on the stove and heat it up that way. Well I tried it and now I am hooked. It crisps up the bottom of the crust and is great!
L, That sounds like an awesome solution! I almost can’t wait to try it in a cast iron skillet…hoping I remember this tip next time we have leftover pizza! Thanks – Katie
Pizza reheated stovetop in a cast iron skillet is amazing(i discovered this because one day i was feeling lazy and didnt want to take all of the pans out of the oven for one slice(we’ve been microwaveless for 9 years))
Thanks for this great article – it helped me get up the momentum, at long last, to unplug the microwave and take it off the counter.
A few months ago I heard that bone broth, in particular, undergoes grievous structural protein changes in the microwave. As I’ve been making more and more things with broth, I adjusted to the minor inconvenience of reheating food on my stove. Why spend hours simmering free-range goodness only to Frankenfood it later? So I mostly only was using it for random things like reheating coffee.
But the main reason to throw out the nukeolator was that the mica shield (stopping radioactive rays?!) had been damaged a long time ago, and had a big hole in it! I don’t even want to think about what nasty things I absorbed from using it “unshielded” for months.
It’s headed for the recycling center this weekend – thanks!
You tip about heating several little bites in a toaster oven was good. (Isn’t the toaster oven fantastic? You can bake muffins in summer without making your kitchen an inferno, or roast a handful of green beans whenever the mood strikes you. Now that’s an indispensable appliance!)
You can also warm up several kinds of food separately in a large pan, with a sprinkling of water – although there will be a little bit of intermingling. It works well for Thanksgiving leftovers and so forth.
Maizy,
Congratulations on your un-acquirement! 😉 Katie
I just recently came across your blog, and am so grateful for the thorough, well-balanced information I find here! This series on microwaves has been very helpful, as it’s something I’ve been considering for a while. I have a question regarding butter, though. The package says to “keep refridgerated” but this leaves me with butter that is virtually unspreadable on toast, muffins, etc. I generally put the butter in the microwave to soften it. I hate how often I microwave our butter, but I’m not sure of an alternative. And I don’t own a toaster oven. Any suggestions?
Kristin,
Happy to have you along for the ride! 😉 Butter can hang out on your counter just fine, as long as you get through a stick in less than, say, a month. (?) I’ve only had butter go rancid once, and it was out of the fridge for a LOOOOONG time. (btw, you’ll KNOW if it goes bad. Yikes.) Just leave it in a butter dish out of the fridge. Toaster ovens are super helpful for avoiding the microwave, but nothing you can’t do in a big oven…it just seems like a big commitment to turn on the real oven for one thing. I still think heating *most* things is faster in a pot on the stove, esp. if you have a gas range. Best of luck! Katie
Thanks for the quick reply! That’s very helpful. I’m so new to all of this!
I know it’s been awhile since this post… But..
Ever tried a butter crock?
It is my hubbies butter compromise. He hates how hard butter is to spread right out of the fridge, but the crock keeps the butter room temp on the table with the salt & pepper shakers.
He also works in the food industry so would freak if I just “left it out”, but the crock uses water to keep it sealed and keep bugs and such out of it. Highly suggest it!
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We ditched our microwave this winter to gain counterspace, and as a way of preparing to live in Guinea for 7 weeks. I am so glad we did! One thing I picked up in Guinea is cooking with a small pressure cooker – it helps a lot with unthawed meat. I needed some beef chunks on Sunday, and did a frozen sirloin steak in the pressure cooker in about 20 minutes cook time…it was falling apart it was so tender.
I rarely use the microwave, but these are great tips for when I DO use it (or did?) Mostly I just used it for reheating leftovers, and the occasional defrosting of baby food cubes or quick quesadillas for Lloyd’s lunch. Maybe a few times a week, tops?
I’m hoping to get some more glass and ceramic dishes for leftovers to help make the transition to a toaster oven in the future a bit easier!
Best,
Sarah
Check those garage sales this time of year! The best finds are dishes with glass lids, because those are getting hard to find in stores anymore. Best of luck!
What great tips. We recently moved and our household goods weren’t elivered for several weeks. We had to learn to live without the microwave. It took a little getting used to, but now that our things have arrived, I find we almost never use it. Your ideas and suggestions might be just the thing to help us get rid of it for good. I’ll be back again to read the benefits of avoiding the microwave!
Also, your tip for freezing soup in spaghetti sauce jars is brilliant! I can’t wait to use this tip. Thanks so much!
Lori
Very interesting! I just found your blog and love it. I didn’t know that microwaves are not healthy, thanks! It does make sense.
Great tips! I’d love to give our microwave the boot and gain some more counter space.
We have lived over 3 years with no microwave. It took some getting used to at first, but then it was really no problem at all. I sure would have been helped by your tips when we stopped using the microwave! 🙂
Laryssa, Well done! Any tips to add for us?
I’m with you on cutting back on the microwave. Good post. I’ve started cooking popcorn on the stovetop and it tastes so much better!
My MIL doesn’t own a microwave and never has, and I’m always amazed at how she is still able to cook! 😉 I would love to ditch our microwave to recover some precious counter space, so I may see how it goes and May and re-evaluate how much it is needed at the end of the month. Thanks for the great tips!
PS: Stove-top popcorn is one of my favorites–my grandma always did it that way and it has such a natural flavor to it. Grandma would throw in a handful of peanuts, too, and it was really good!
Rachel, Oooo, peanuts. I love it!
It is funny how we have come to consider the mic as a standard kitchen appliance. My mom was telling me that we got our first one when I was 8. I said, “What did you do before that?!” 😉
Very good info. I have a close friend and now my healer telling me to stop microwaving … sigh. I needed to read this today. Thanks!
Viveca
Viveca, I’m so glad to be of help!
A few days after reading your posts about the microwave, ours broke down(the plate stopped rotating). We decided not to buy one anymore and just used the other appliances we have. We also have that old popcorn pumper 🙂 I love it when the popcorn start spinning and flying around the kitchen…just kidding!